Ball State Moves Up the Institutional Research Ladder

Ball State University has moved up in rank from being a "doctoral/research university" to a "high research university," according to the Carnegie Foundation, an organization that determines how research is classified at colleges and universities.

According to the Carnegie Foundation website, doctorate-granting institutions can be assigned to one of three categories based on a measure of research activity--very high, high, and doctoral/research universities. However, the site is careful to explain that institutions differ with respect to the level of research activity, not quality or importance and "while this approach is suitable for classification purposes, we do not believe the institution-level results should be used for institution-by-institution comparison and ranking."

Stan Geidel, program manager in the Sponsored Programs Office, concurs and explains that "It's more of a recognition of past achievements rather than future goals. It recognizes the nature of the work that has been going on at Ball State for the past few years and because of that work it has prompted the classification agency to reposition us into this middle classification."

The classification system includes all accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities in the U.S. For more information visit classifications.carnegiefoundation.org. You can read a feature article from the January 25th edition of The Star Press here.

Supreme Court Accepts Case Challenging Key Feature of Bayh-Dole Act

From AAAS Policy Alert – November 10, 2010:

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case challenging universities’ claims to ownership of faculty inventions created with federal funding. The case, Stanford v. Roche, strikes at the core of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which allows universities to retain the rights to research funded by federal grants. Stanford sued the pharmaceutical company Roche, alleging infringement of technology for detecting HIV levels in a patient’s blood. The university claims it owns the technology because its discoverer worked at Stanford. Roche counters that the inventor signed a contract that gave the company patent rights to anything that resulted from their collaboration. In a September 2009 ruling, the U.S. Federal Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit overturned a California District Court decision, stating that “Stanford lacks standing to assert its claims of infringement against Roche.” A friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Obama administration stated that the appeals-court ruling undermined the intent of the Bayh-Dole Act and “turns the act’s framework on its head.” The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case early next year in time to rule by the end of June.